Windows 11 and Windows 10 were recently updated with “Windows Backup”, which has now become a system app. While the feature initially appeared as “optional” or something that could be easily dismissed, Microsoft is slowly getting aggressive with its new OneDrive backup campaign on Windows 11.
Windows 11’s “Windows Backup” uses OneDrive to back up many of the things that are important to you. This may include your credentials, settings, pictures, documents, videos, files, themes, or even audio settings. Microsoft wants the Windows Backup app to become the ultimate backup tool, but there’s a catch.
Windows Backup does not support offline backups and requires a OneDrive plan. By default, OneDrive offers 5GB of free storage, which is why some users do not want to backup their PC. But is that going to stop Microsoft from pestering users? Probably not. In a new server-side update, Windows 11 has started nagging users to try the Backup tool.
Man, they just keep burying their head further. I still have Windows 10 on my gaming PC, and that’s more because I plan on replacing it and will use that moment to transition to Linux, but up until a few months ago I could have been convinced to keep using Windows.
That was until they popped up a full screen ad in the middle of gaming, telling me my PC doesn’t work with 11 but they have great financing options forn a 11 capable PC. Followed by my lock screen having ads of a similar nature. Fucking gross.
That’s despicable. Popping a window up over everything enrages me even when it’s an application I intended to open. Popping up a fucking ad while I am in the middle of something is completely unacceptable. I can definitely see what that was the last straw.
I think Windows 10 will be the last version I use. As time goes on, Linux seems more and more like a viable option, and I’ll be glad to have control over my PC for once. And who knows, maybe I will no longer have the mysterious freezing issue that’s been plaguing me for years…
I switched to Pop!_OS earlier this year and couldn’t be happier. All apps run way faster than they did with Windows on the same hardware. All but one of my Steam games run great (one day I’ll get that last game to work). My “life critical” things are web based, everything else is adjustable.
That sounds promising. I’ve heard good things about Pop!_OS. Which game has issues, if I might ask?
I try to avoid web-based apps when I can. For instance, there is a supposedly great photo editor that’s only available via web browser. I’d hate to become dependent on it and then lose access due to an internet outage, or something.
Sorry, when I said “life critical”, i mean things like email, banking, self-hosted NextCloud for files, etc. For me, everything else is flexible as I don’t have business things that have to run on Windows (that is my work provided laptop), so I don’t have to have the Adobe suite for photo editing, i can use one of several open source alternatives, and all of my hobbies have open source alternatives like Blender.
The only game I cannot get to run is Space Engineers. Numerous other newer and older games work great. To be fair, I’m not an online/multiplayer gamer, so the challenges people run in to due to anti-cheating requirements don’t affect the games I play.
What was really interesting to me, is that I tried Windows 11 Pro and 6 or 7 different Linux distros over several months before landing on Pop!_OS. I mention this because it was all the exact same hardware and so I was able to compare performance in an Apples to Apples situation. There is an obvious application loading improvement. Even comparing against something like Garuda that is supposedly all about performance tweaks.
Oh, I see. For some reason I took ‘life critical’ to mean any program one keeps installed and ‘can’t do without’ ;)
I think Space Engineers is on my list, and it looks like my PC just barely meets the requirements. As for compatiblity, I can always keep Windows 10 around for certain things.
I don’t play anything online either. Last game I tried online was Minecraft, and I just couldn’t deal with the griefers. Some asshats found a way into my area and stole/killed all my cows >:( (Or I was overbreeding and the mods removed them, idk.)
I switched to opensuse tumbleweed about 3 months ago and I have zero complaints. Yast is such a powerful too you can avoid using the terminal for many things, and it being rolling release makes it easier to stay up to date. Plus it comes with snapper reconfigured so if anything breaks you can rollback in about 5 minutes. I’ve had to learn some new things, and a few online games don’t work according to proton db but I’ve yet to run into a game problem on a game I want to play.
I don’t mind learning and using the terminal. From what I hear, it can be used to automate things more easily than on Windows and I’m all for it, as long as it’s not needed for everyday tasks.
I think when I eventually (soon, I hope) get my PC hooked up where I’m at I’ll try either Pop!_OS or Mint.
Thanks for the feedback~
This nagging + only offering a “Not Now” “rejection” option shit needs to stop. Apple constantly does this too on iPhone and Mac. Umm, I said no to having it or upgrading it, that should mean never bother me again unless I seek it out intentionally.
So glad I switched to Linux!
Microsoft will continue ramping up the ads, nags, and dark patterns until everyone is subscribed to their own hardware.
*until everyone stops using Windows. Except for business users, which probably don’t get these nags anyway
Yeah. Then I’ll fill up my free 15gb quota with garbage OS files, and be prompted to pay a subscription to backup the other 1-2tb of data.
Didn’t read the article, but Windows 10 did the whole OneDrive backup nag message thing as well. Defender would always shiw a warning that you’re “not secure” if you don’t backup to OneDrive.
Microsoft is teaching a whole generations to ignore them.
One would have to be a special kind of stupid to do that.
Also even if I had the space on my OneDrive (and I’ve even got 30GB thanks to some promotions from the Windows Phone days) my upload speed is dogshit slow and I don’t want to think about how long it would take me to upload the 70GB it wants to backup.
I updated a surface pro this morning and it was a huge effort just to log back in. Like, it took several minutes to get through all the prompts, login errors and finally land on the desktop.
Now I need to check if OneDrive installed itself again.
Shut up, OneDrive.
Interesting. I wonder if I’m going to end up getting this or not? My guess is that I won’t, but we’ll see.
I have Windows 11 on my new computer, yes (and I needed Windows because some of the things I want to do require it), but I installed Windows 11 IoT Enterprise LTSC, and it doesn’t really come with much of anything out of the box. It’s supposed to only get security updates, no features updates.
Life hack: Install Windows 10/11 Enterprise IOT LTSC you get support for a long time and there is absolutely no bullshit pre installed.
